AISD will hold a community meeting to gather input about the current map, called Plan 2, for elementary school boundaries. At this meeting you can submit comments about the merits and drawbacks of the current map.
Tuesday, January 5, 2010, 6:00 p.m.
Clayton Elementary School Cafeteria
7525 La Crosse Ave., 841-9200
• Sign up to speak when you arrive at the meeting.
• Comments must be no longer than 2 minutes.
• In the past, AISD has not limited the number of speakers.
• Submit a written version of your comments to AISD representative at the end of your remarks.
• Consider practicing your comments to make sure they fall within the 2 minute limit.
If you missed the meeting at Mills, but would like a copy of what was discussed, please contact Lisa Chatham or Michelle Reinhardt at millsrep@gmail.com.
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In addition to citing your own area's concerns in the comment cards, please urge AISD and the task force to move all or part of area 49. It is the only way we can get out of this deadlock.
ReplyDeletehttp://sites.google.com/site/swaustinelementary/home
Mills parents,
ReplyDeleteLisa and I ask for you not to advocate for a different plan, as Cindy suggests. The community meeting is designed to take input on the current plan before the task force, or Plan 2.
We are examining her plan and looking at the merits and drawbacks of it, Mills parents should stick to the impact of Plan 2 on our schools/their families, as we discussed at the meeting last week. That is going to be the most effective use of your 2 minutes.
If you'd like more information on what was discussed, contact Lisa or I for more information.
Hi Michelle and Mills parents,
ReplyDeleteI'm simply suggesting adding to your comment cards, not using up your 2 minutes.
Thank you,
Cindy Peterson
From AISD:
ReplyDeleteAt the community meeting on the 5th, attendees will be asked to sign-in and will be given a comment card. They will also be asked if they would like to speak to the FUBTF. If they wish to speak, they will be give a number card. When their number is called, they will be given 2 minutes to address the task force. These comments, as well as the written comments, will be given to the task force at their next meeting on January 12th.
You can sign up to speak till 7:15 p.m. and then it will be closed. All speakers before 7:15 p.m. will be allowed to speak.
ReplyDeleteLisa and Michelle - Can we leave a comment card without speaking? Thanks for the information.
ReplyDelete@Anne: Yes, you can fill out a comment card, or bring your own typed up comments, and turn them in to the District at the meeting. These comments will go directly to the entire Task Force. Thank you.
ReplyDeleteReally good meeting tonight. Did anyone write down the number of people who spoke against breaking tracking for Mills students? Seemed like quite a few. 50? I think the case was very well presented. Generally the meeting was very civil and well-run. Lisa and Michelle, would you mind letting us know what's coming next? I'm sorry I haven't been good about keeping the dates.
ReplyDeleteThe next step for the task force is to meet again January 12 at 5:45 in the board room. Just like the other meetings, this will be open to the public, but the public will not be allowed to speak.
ReplyDeleteThere are two other possible meeting dates on the calendar, if the task force chooses to use them. They are the two following Tuesdays - Jan. 19 and 26.
There was a husband and wife team that spoke last night - they had a great chart. I'm sorry I didn't catch the name. Could they please send me a copy of the chart and comments? I would like to take a closer look at it. millsrep@gmail.com
Everyone - from all the schools - did a great job of stating their viewpoints rationally within the criteria of the task force. That was very much appreciated by all the task force members. The props and charts were a nice addition.
http://kut.org/items/show/19360
ReplyDeleteKUT report on last night's meeting.
@mat - I tried to keep track of speakers, what they said, where they were from. Here's my unofficial tally:
ReplyDelete30 speakers from Mills
20 speakers from Oak Hill
1 speaker from Small
1 from Meridian
4 from Sunset Valley
1 from Kiker
1 from Clayton
2 from Patton
1 from Boone
I know I missed some, but you can get the gyst.
Kristie Valentine
Candace Combs did the tracking group size analysis, by listing all the combinations of ES and MS, and totalling the populations that fall into each combo (then dividing by 6 grades). The result is a stacked bar chart showing how big the various peer groups are in each of the middle schools. She also made a visual representation of this with a groups of dots, one for each kid. It was striking, really, to see visually the size of the Mills/Boone group, and how it is so different than most all the other middle schools.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.impactnews.com/southwest-austin/258-recent-news/6667-crowd-voices-objections-to-proposed-school-boundary-changes
ReplyDeleteCommunity Impact coverage of the meeting
I have a real concern that, by addressing Sunset Valley and Boone in this mix, we will be preventing the district from make good decisions regarding facility use. School closures are on the table and it is unfair to ask the FUBTF to try to address utilization problems with this option looming in the wings.
ReplyDeleteOne other point that needs to be made: by moving the two disputed Mills areas (the notorious 96A2 and 96H3) back to Mills, we shift the Gorzycki/Small ratio to 55/45% which is much healthier for the Mills children overall.
Theresa Aradi
Kristie was close. 69 speakers total (not 88 as some agencies have reported - there were 88 cards handed out but not all of them spoke).
ReplyDeleteMills
34 total against. (1 supported going back to Plan 1, and 1 was against moving CCN to Kiker)
Oak Hill
12 against - "the peninsula" group spoke primarily about proximity and travel time
10 for - of those, 9 were Travis Country residents reacting to the plan Cindy has mentioned in these comments, but which has never been represented on Plans 0, 1 or 2, namely moving TC to Sunset Valley. The other gentleman was in support because he wanted his child to go to Meridian.
Meridian
1 against - wanted addional Clayton sections moved to Meridian so that they can open at higher capacity and have addtional resources
Sunset Valley
3 against - they don't want to lose the established ares along Brodie
1 for
Clayton
2 against - both expressed concerns over the demographers figures and would like to see additional sections of Clayton moved to Meridian
1 for
Patton
2 against - proximity issue with them living literally across the street from Patton but being bused across Mopac to SSV
Kiker
2 against - seemed to be primarily in support of us
Boone
1 against because he wants all of the areas of Mills that go to Small to bused to Boone
Traci Anderson
To sum up, just over 82% spoke out against the plan in general and 49% spoke out against the idea of moving the two areas 96A2 and 96H3 to Boone. Is that accurate?
ReplyDeleteOne thing I think we need to stress more in regards to tracking is vertical alignment. Tracking/feeder patterns is much more important that just socialization of students, which I think in general the board and public tend to categorize as a "kids can adjust" sort of issue.
ReplyDeleteBut tracking is NOT simply a social issue. Although it certainly affects children socially, the bigger part of the issue is Vertical Alignment between schools. Sending 96A2 and 96H3 to Boone means that they begin in the Crockett Vertical Team, switch to the Austin Vertical Team at Small, and finish on the Bowie Vertical Team.
The concept of the “vertical team” started in the 80s and is structured to achieve, among other things, school improvement and successful transition of students. At heart, the model is intended to improve student achievement by aligning curriculum, skills, and objectives from grade to grade and allowing communication between schools for this purpose.
This is why tracking and alignment should be more of an important factor to the Board.
Mom,
ReplyDeleteWhat a fantastic summary of the comments, both numerically and in content. Very well worded, as it becomes manageable to discern what rationales people are currently making, and to judge strengths and weeknesses.
And I very much appreciate the education about the concept of vertical teams. Honestly, I'd never connected these dots, and it make the tracking issue triply important for me now. The social issue resonates for me, but the curriculum and planning aspects do even more for me. I think this aspect should be debated, here and at the FUBTF, in depth, in order to continue to dissapate the overwhelming public opinion that 'kids can adjust' (look at the statesman article comments).
I will use these teams to attempt to quantify the amount of 'bad' tracking that a plan has, a la Candace's excel analysis.
For clarity, are you saying there are exactly 3 distinct teams, and are they called Crockett, Austin, and Bowie). Are there distinctions or slight differences or various strengths of each?
I hadn't seen the Statesman article and related comments. Was it posted here?
ReplyDeleteIf not, here's the link: http://www.statesman.com/news/texas/school-boundary-input-sought-162585.html
Mike,
ReplyDeleteI listed a number of these tracking/alignment issues in my speech. Generally they fall into 3 categories: student/social; community; academic/administrative. Alignment is in the third category. It should be noted that many of the school development programs in East Austin, such as Austin Interfaith and Austin Voices, are really about community-building. The importance of parental (community) support in the schools cannot be overstated. Yet mis-tracking schools directly erodes that involvement. Unfortunately, the FUBTF process makes it hard to educate the decision-makers on the importance of what at first blush seem like esoteric issues. "Nuggets" are useful only when everyone already knows what the codewords mean.
--Matthew Markert
118 PAGES of comment cards/charts submitted to the task force from the Community input meeting. I'll be combing through them this weekend and post a breakdown.
ReplyDeleteMike -
ReplyDeleteThere are 12 Vertical Teams in AISD, 11 are "regular" and one "special" (comprised of magnet schools). I believe Matthew or Lucia have the specific data on feeder patterns and how they align with vertical teams - I've been unable to find the feeder pattern info for all schools on AISD's website. To some extent the feeder patterns are reflected in the vertical teams, but since many ES and MS split as they feed, this isn't always the case. The 3 vertical teams in our area are Bowie (Bowie HS, Bailey MS, Baranoff ES, Cowan ES, Gorzycki MS, Clayton ES, Kiker ES, Mills ES), Austin (Austin HS, OHenry MS, Barton Hills ES, Bryker Woods ES, Casis ES, Matthews ES, Pease ES, Zilker ES, Small MS, Oak Hill ES, Patton ES), and Crocket (Crocket HS, Bedicheck MS, Odom ES, Pleasant Hill ES, St. Elmo ES, Williams ES, Coving MS, Boone ES, Cunningham ES, Galindo ES, Joslin ES, Sunset Valley ES).